Comment by q-base | Hacker News Reader

Comment by q-base | Hacker News Reader

I have been doing intermittent fasting with 8 hour "feeding window" for probably 10 years now. There are all sorts of different more or less believable facts about intermittent fasting. I won't get into any of them. I can just say that for me with my goals, it works. I can keep a lower bodyfat percentage while keeping muscle mass, year round than I could with any other "diet".

My main issue with any other "diet" or philosophy has always been my huge appetite. When I ate 6 times a day I was always hungry because the portion size was too low. I have a huge appetite and loves to eat big portions. When I only have 2-3 meals a day, then they can be substantially larger.

If you have trouble eating enough good food already, then IF is not for you.

If you want the alleged health benefits, whether they occur or not, then try a day or two of fasting. But the daily fasting should only be used if it somehow fits your life, schedule and goals.

The right "diet" is the one you can consistently adhere to.

> The right "diet" is the one you can consistently adhere to.

This is incredibly important. Having managed to lose a lot of weight, gradually, and then keep it off for several years, the key for me was finding something that fitted into my life and to which I could stick. I also gradually changed things, rather than doing a big-bang change.

My problem over the last few years has been the effect of having children. Between the sleep deprevation and the change to my schedules I found it a lot harder to stick to my previous routines, resulting in me falling back into old habits. I'm now trying small changes, starting with at 10/14 routine, which I'll probably make more strict (8/16) in the future once it's become habitual. If nothing else I'm finding I sleep better than when I ate later in the day, which improves my will-power, and having a period of being hungry makes resisting snacks easier during the eating period.

Good habits are hard to form and keep, and bad habits are even harder to break permanently. You have to be kind to yourself and take your time if you want those changes to be for the rest of your life. Losing weight is simple, but hard.

My problem with IF is that I need energy in the morning because of bicycle commute, and I also want to have a warm meal in the evening after I come back from work. This could only work if the feeding window was 10-11 hours wide.

If you're healthy enough to "bicycle commute", you might not need IF in the first place...

It's surprisingly difficult to get rid of 15lbs of extra weight I gained during COVID, even with 2 hours of cycling a day.

Could do a fasted ride? How long are your commutes?

1 hour (one way).

I think people greatly over estimate how many calories you burn while working out. It's very little, unless you're able to train the entire day I doubt the average person is burning many calories from moderate exercise.

Not trying to say exercising isn't worth while, it is but using it as the sole means of weight loss isn't fruitful gotta change the diet as well.

Ugh, you're so right and I have to add:

STRENGTH TRAINING FIRST!

If you only do cardio, ie bike and run, then you are actually WORSE OFF.

Calories burned is directly proportional to muscle mass!

Air squats. Pushups. Crunches. Ten of each of those a day. It can be done in 60 seconds. 10X that and you'll be shredded without running or cycling a day in your life.

Yes to strength training first. However, please be careful doing only highly repetitive exercises like pushups and crunches every day - it's a good way to develop joint injuries as you get older. Build up slowly and switch it up - like a healthy diet, variation is the key to longevity!

Try using smaller plates at meals (not kidding), and/or adding a 30 min walk after dinner.

From personal experience, reducing calories intake is the only thing that works. Exercising only burns a noticeable amount of calories to if you are a really good or elite athlete who does a lot of hours everyday at a very high intensity.

Anyway, exercising is always necesary to keeping muscular mass.

Pre-covid I was cycling a minimum of 25km/day. For 8+ years. I've always been a fat bastard.

IF including 2-week (water-only)fasts during a 3-year period had no noticeable benefits besides 10-20 pound drops at the start. (Keto-only on & off provides brief weight loss.)

My point, "decent" exercise doesn't guarantee weight loss.

I only eat lunch and dinner and while my morning commute is simple, when I go on a day hike, my diet doesn't change..

  If I were starting IF while hiking every day, I would probably have snack in the morning at first but reduce and then eliminate it.

One of those is a need. The other is a want. Everything is a tradeoff.

The data on Time Restricting Eating shows that you most probably will experience benefits even with a feeding window as wide as 12 hrs. I do 10hrs and it's been very good for me.

Ouch, it hurts me to read this.

Try biking harder/longer so that you use up all your blood sugar and convert your metabolism from glycogen to ketones.

Going on an hour or longer run is part of my secret to extended fasting. Exercise-based switching of your metabolism makes the first and second day of fasting NOT suck so bad.

So that's literally the opposite of your assumption, that the exercise makes you "need energy." If your like 99% of people, you already have plenty "energy" throughout your body.

What are you actually experiencing?

Blood sugar withdrawal. Your "need" for energy is actually a craving for the high glycemic ingredients in your food that cause physical addiction like symptoms, like feeling "hungry." And you may find it surprising that "hunger" isn't one of the things people experience on an extended fast when properly hydrated.

Your "need" is easing the pain of withdrawal. Not anything to do with "energy."

Edit: my SO informed me that there are some situations where woman benefit from certain foods after exercise for hormone regulation. But she also concurs that the evidence is pretty clear that men were built for intermittent fasting.

Maybe you're simplifying for the sake of brevity, but this notion of "use up all your blood sugar" and "switching" (as if binary) between glucose and ketones is pervasive and frustrating. That is not how things work.

Unless you have some metabolic disorder, after your hour+ run your blood glucose is still going to be within, maybe on the low end of, the normal range. Even if you've completely depleted your liver of glycogen, which is unlikely for anything short of marathon distance unless you were already low. If your blood sugar was low (never mind gone) you'd be in serious trouble, dead before long if not rectified.

It could be mostly an habit/mental thing. I go to the gym fasted (anywhere from 10 to 20hr fast) and I ohp/squat/deadlift moderately heavy weight for 60-90min. I also commute by bike fasted

Your body doesn't run out of energy that fast, we've just became very used to over feeding

IF fits my natural appetite and is easy for me to adhere to. My problem with it is I've discovered eating a small breakfast (~250 cal) immediately when I wake up is the single greatest aid to keeping my sleep schedule stable. On IF, when my meals are at ~ 1 PM and ~7 PM, my tendency to sleep in/stay up/go on a >24 schedule is amplified.

If I instead do "morning IF" and just eat breakfast and lunch, I'm lethargic in the morning and afternoon and hungry to distraction in the evening.

> When I only have 2-3 meals a day, then they can be substantially larger.

Most people only have three meals a day right ? Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Most of the people have snacks and coffee in between 3 meals.

That chocolate bar doesn't count as a meal. Donuts aren't meals either.

The calorie counts would beg to differ

Snacking throughout the day is very US specific.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com